It's a sad day, when a first world country thinks it's a GOOD thing to be the "leader in regulation of the internet". As the UK continues with it's oppressive regime, laws such as the Digital Economy Act ruining adult media, complete and utter loss of privacy thanks to RIPA, and now it gets so much worse.

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

In the next year, the UK will likely be cut off from the rest of the world, in the same way that North Korea is. No longer will we be able to communicate with our friends in the US, Asia, and Europe. A complete and utter echo chamber.

Because that's what she wants. Theresa May, who was our previous Home Secretary (a fancy word for "government head of destroying privacy"), ended up our Prime Minister (president) after David Cameron quit.

Despite her new role being focused on the entire country, instead she's using it to push through more and more ridiculous breaches of privacy. Soon, as they cut us off from the rest of the world, we probably won't even be able to use VPNs or TOR.

After May cuts off our communication with the outside world, it's likely she might go further, possibly imposing travel bans to "prevent international terrorism", and giving more power to the GCHQ (the UK's NSA).

If the Conservative party wins the election this June, it's likely that we won't be competing with other European countries for standards of living, rather, North Korea. She plans on making the UK "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet".

If you're a UK citizen. For the love of the internet, DO NOT VOTE FOR THE CONSERVATIVES. Please. Any other party. It's likely that Steemit would be considered "too open" and banned within the next few years in the UK, should Theresa May stay in power.

This is indeed terrifying. A couple of years ago I read a book called, Civilization:The West and the Rest by Niall ferguson. He does a good job explaining the world in the 1300. If you were to look at the world back then, comparing Europe to China, you'd have never believed Europe would be the one dominating the world for the next 500 years. The reason China failed, at a time it was more advanced than everyone else, was because it decided to close itself in from the outside world. Europe, on the hand, focused on exploration, international trade and thrived. Reading this worries me that Europe will make the same mistake China did 700 years ago.

These rules come from, & has to be approved by Elizabeth. Their queen is not pleased with "Pandora's Box" telling all their secrets as it has & shall continue to do. So, she is shutting the people down and readying them for more tyranny. Only this time she will bend them over that golden carriage of hers.

I have already voted your post but now I have time to reply. I am not able to vote but in the same time I won't vote her. A person that was elected because after Cameron left she was saying that was against the Brexit and once elected she changed mind. Now this bad new that I wasn't aware of... disgusting only disgusting.
Don't forget that all the incentives for Renewable energy have been cut off... I mean instead of a progression I can only see a regression.
Poor us mate... we are at the same level of North Korea now :(

I read this piece a few days ago, was also planning to make a post about this proposal. Privacy is something we must keep, we have to hold on to. This idea gives me the feeling we are going back to the times people were not allowed to say anything, censorship on everything that is written.

I do not believe UK will be cut off from world. I like that we focus more and more on internets and modern ways. But take with pinches of salt of what UK govs declare. It is only words and the people have more power than they often realise. The people will not let UK get into such a state. Certainly nothing close to North Korea!

Plus i feel it very unlikely Torys will win election.

I suppose we just have to sit back and wait for it to unravel, deal with problems as they occur. Try not to worry/think about worse case scenarios. Else you will lose your mind trying to guess outcomes. Stay calm. Carry on ;)

As a responsible and new user of Steem, I would like to dissuade the author from rhetoric that only serves as its own echo chamber of scare mongering.

Do you really believe that the UK will be "No longer [...] be able to communicate with our friends in the US" or "probably won't even be able to use VPNs"??

Those kinds of over-the-top, in your face, cheap shots are the mainstay of the trolling trolls that troll all of the major media websites.

I do not debate the points you bring up about censorship and government controlling the web. That does concern me. But to lump all of that together and have this call to action (DO NOT VOTE FOR THE XYZ PARTY) is in itself a concerning problem. There's hardly a party out there, or a politician in any major position, who consistently upholds human values, privacy, and property rights at the expense of government power.

Voting the conservatives out, I hate to tell you, is not going to magically fix anything.

So while I dislike your post a lot, I am not here to condemn you. I'd like you to ease off your rhetoric a notch or two. Projecting your ideas so vociferously is not good for Steem, in my opinion. I would much rather see you lampoon and ridicule your opponents with candor and respect than with all that bluster.

Theresa May believes that we need to keep that #1 position, as if it's a good thing.

We're living in a society where your browser history isn't protected by law any more, it can be accessed warrantless by many government agencies including the NHS (our health care), the fire services, and many others.

To think it couldn't get to the point where we're cut off from the outside, is ridiculous. The conservative party, along with Theresa May, believe the only way to stop terrorism is to lose our privacy. Her reason for leaving the European Court of Human Rights, is clearly to drop "the right to privacy" which has been a roadblock to her invasive surveillance laws. I have zero respect for May or the Conservatives.

Ok, so you are confident in your polemics. I got that. And yes, the UK government is certainly a snoopity snooping on her citizens.

But your "content" revolves around a Parade of Horribles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade_of_horribles of what allegedly will happen unless we sack T. May. Please stick to the facts, present your case for surveillance and privacy problems, and produce content ripe for discussion.

I am willing to discuss issues. You make valid points and intersperse them with "she is the kind of person" sweeping generalisations and "zero respect" dramatizations.

What you posted here is just a rant and a diatribe. It's not interesting content.

It stinks.

You disagree that my pointed criticism will improve STEEM? Downvoted for poor and unreasonable content. Consider this my curation for the day.

Please stick to the facts, present your case for surveillance and privacy problems, and produce content ripe for discussion.

There's all kinds of "content" here on Steemit, and you'll find a lot of diatribe amongst it. I support your vote usage, do whatever you like, but I don't think a statement like this can be respected.

I also agree with you this is a little echo chambery, like you might find on Facebook. However it's perfectly valid to extrapolate that a government which has consistently moved to increase surveillance and internet controls, will restrict the kinds of technology which can be run on the internet, up to and including a Great British Firewall.

We all have a tendency to jump to conclusions. But when that knee-jerk reaction in the author's mind (The Internet is going to be shut off any moment now!!) is disconnected with facts (The conservatives have pushed for regulation and censorship), then the author is guilty of fantasizing.

This diatribe is fantastic. It's fantasy.

Why debate fantasy?

I say it's fantasy because the author can show no proof of these predictions, nor could I assent or dissent from made-up, fantastic, unsupported speculation.

My point is that in order to have a fair and reasonable debate, we should at least have some framework, some rules, and some parameters. The alternative is to shout each other down, invent false premises and straw men, and fabricate things.

May the best un-sourced, un-attributed, un-founded speculation win?!?

My contention with the author's points of speculation are precisely that they are ... literally ... un-reasonable, meaning that they are supported with no reason, no reasoning, except as naked assertions.

My opinion is that the author needs to change the naked reasoning into clear and convincing reasoning. Then I will debate the premises and conclusions.

I think it is exactly a bit of a work of imagination, a fantasy if you prefer. This:

In the next year, the UK will likely be cut off from the rest of the world, in the same way that North Korea is.

clearly is.

My point is that in order to have a fair and reasonable debate, we should at least have some framework, some rules, and some parameters. The alternative is to shout each other down, invent false premises and straw men, and fabricate things.

Maybe you got the wrong idea here. There's no indication that the author intended to debate this point. And regarding your framework, rules, parameters... in your own "debate" here are using questionable techniques. For example I find this:

May the best un-sourced, un-attributed, un-founded speculation win?!?

as a rhetorical question to be very childish.

My opinion is that the author needs to change the naked reasoning into clear and convincing reasoning. Then I will debate the premises and conclusions.

Perhaps, but you were never invited to debate this and I doubt they care very much about your conditions.

Really what attracted me to respond to you is this part of your original reply:

But to lump all of that together and have this call to action (DO NOT VOTE FOR THE XYZ PARTY) is in itself a concerning problem. There's hardly a party out there, or a politician in any major position, who consistently upholds human values, privacy, and property rights at the expense of government power.

Voting the conservatives out, I hate to tell you, is not going to magically fix anything.

This is fatalism and in my personal opinion worse than any ill-thought out reasoning on the part of @someguy123. I reject that it's likely the UK will literally cut itself off from the rest of the world's internet, but that these kind of privacy invasions will increase is likely, up to and including more restrictions that may closely approach a national firewall. This is is absolutely a reason to vote for a lesser of two evils. I'm not saying I support that reason, but it's not selfevidently invalid.

If you are from the US, you should know that the UK does not have the same two party system, there are more parties and they have more of a chance of holding various levels of power, it's not just the big two.

Here's the general election statistics for the UK for the last hundred years (source):

If you compare that to US congress election stats it's a very different story (note, I made this myself as no chart was available, just data):

If you look at the last few years the trends of the underdog is opposite. In the US there has been no "other" candidate elected since 2005, and no more than two "other" candidates elected in an election since 1943. However in the UK "other"s are on the rise.

This makes the idea of voting for someone other than a conservative more compelling in the UK.

I have a lot to say about those reasonable assertions. Make it a full posting of your own! I short circuited the author's post because it was unilateral fatalism. (Conservatives are evil, vote for someone else.)

And yes, my rhetorical vote for "none of the above" is universally fatalistic (UF). As far as I understand Biblical eschatology, the Christians of the 1st century had some type of UF... meaning that all governments will fail. Scold me for that!? 😏

But just to remind you, this post was tagged anarchy, amongst other things.

Well all governments will disappear anyway at the Biblical end of the world, that's not to say they will all fail in the short term.

In fact there's a lot of governmental conservatism in there and supporting the authority of the government.

From Romans 13

[v1] Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
[v2] Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
[v3] For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
[v4] For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
[v5] Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

[v6] This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Of course you can probably find something to the contrary, such is the incoherence of it as a text on which to base an argument.

But the above doesn't sound like fatalism to me. Sounds like get out and support it. The next section is about the moral reason to pay taxes, but I don't want to get blown up 😜

On the anarchy tag, I know plenty of anarchists who vote. Some are not so loftily principled to know there's some sense in creating the conditions within the current system which are most amenable to your goals in order to further them. That's pragmatism.

That actually sounds about right. I think a lot of platforms are designed to put Trolls in the driver seat. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I think that some of the most lucrative YouTube channels are based on the fact that people want controversial, off-beat, unconventional content. Many of the major media personalities in the US are essentially accused of hyping their positions to the point that drama ensues. It's all about the ratings.

It's pretty lucrative for the talking heads, bloggers, vloggers, radio talk show hosts, political pundits, and Hollywood gossipers.

(Most) truth is relative and wholly based on perspective. The opinions expressed in the author's blog are strong, but so are those to the contrary, and the mainstream media is more or less an echo chamber, along with every social media outlet.

On trolls : On the one hand, it would be amazing if Steem could be troll free (not calling author that) - but there's no way to ensure that without clamping down on personal freedom, and drawing a bunch of arbitrary lines as to what's appropriate and what's not, what's good for the steem community, what's not...and then, bam, it's rules and regulations here too.
(deeper question - why do humans constantly need to create systems and rules that oppress us and go against our nature...or is it our nature to classify and condemn?)

I agree that the author's post is one sided, he doesn't pretend it isn't. I agree with some of his points. Now, as an American, I'm not fluent by any means in UK politics, aside from what I hear in my own echo chamber across the pond. (Every thing we learn is colored by the lens of nationalism to some degree - whether we despise our country's leaders or embrace them...whether we are conscious of it or not simply being American or British or Chinese is a lens...)

My natural reaction was to take everything he said with a grain of salt, and research it before I form an opinion. And that's the heart of the matter - censoring everything or saying people shouldn't speak their mind implies readers are too dumb/lazy to do their own research (yes, many are. maybe not dumb, but lazy).

The problem isn't what's written and where it's written it's the entire culture of wanting to have our news with our coffee - hot and ready to go.

I don't think steem pretends to be a community of hard news journalists, and the assumption should be that readers aren't so weak as to lap up every word someone writes and take it for gospel ...

That said, journalism was my first career path - as a student I was taught not to include my personal biases in articles - but I realized thats impossible. Every adjective we choose adds a slant to the story - think about Trump visiting Saudi via the lens of CNN vs Fox.

Anyway, I like the freedom of Steem. I think dialogue is important. Your comments, other critics comments, the writer's opinions, etc . Restricting any of that would be a real problem.

I hope it is just a bubble, it must be. Furthermore I am wondering how does terrorism stop when cutting off the internet? I think the bad guys will always find a way to communicate while the good guys must suffer being cut off from communication. That way in my opinion terrorism is winning.

But fighting terrorism is more important than privacy. Everybdoy knows that Al Qaeda wouldn´t be founded without MSN Messenger, and ISIS wouldn´t be created without Whatsapp. Not being able to criticise the government is worth for keeping our children safe.
(ironic mode off)

It is my impression that we are already being cut off from a great many internet sites. Limiting our knowledge has been a preda-Tory occult manifesto since the damn party was initiated. Why would anyone expect the old leopard to change it's spots now?

The liberated of expression is innate of the spirit as the progress and by limiting the communications by intenert is placed a brake to this freedom and to the progress and well-being of the citizens; Therefore no citizen of the united kingdom should vote for the conservatives

Dude you are Upvoted, followed and witness voted.
Britain need to wake up and smell the tyranny. The more research I do the more obvious it is our elites are the puppet masters and the US is our attack dog. George Orwell & Aldus Huxley had differing opinions of the outcome of the future they saw planned by the Fabian society.http://www.freebritainnow.org/0/fabiansociety.htm
Check this out if you haven't heard of them. You seem pretty savvy so you may have but if others reading this haven't, do some research before its too late to affect any real change.
It won't matter who you vote for the agenda is set. Anyone who gets in and tries to change it will get JFK'd. Sadly the PTB are going to double down and will only be removed by force.

It's a double whammy. A few weeks back we got the real time monitoring system, and now she is talking about regulating content.
Basically a vote for the conservatives is a vote for surveillance + censorship.

followed you someguy123 - you are coming at this from the same sort of place as me

Even if they went full north korea with their internet it will probably be fine. Someone will invent something to get access to non restricted internet. You can use cell phone signals to make a network.